Fantasy Literary Smackdown: Foer vs. Palin

Sometimes, living in our culture is so worth it: like when two of the biggest books it produces in a single month are so diametrically opposed in tone, message, jacket design, intended audience, and whether the people who wrote them appeared on “Ellen” or “Oprah” that seeing them lying side by side on my desk causes reveries of accidental encounters between their authors. What would happen? Would there be spitting? Would the stinkeye be given? Or worse? Our contenders:

In one corner, “Saffron,” vegetarian (but not in a Fascist kind of way):

I, too, assumed that my book about eating animals would become a straightforward case for vegetarianism. It didn’t…. Eating animals is one of those topics, like abortion, where it is impossible to definitely know some of the important details (When is a fetus a person, as opposed to a potential person? What is animal experience really like?) and that cuts right to one’s deepest discomfort, often provoking defensiveness or aggression….

My decision not to eat animals is necessary for me, but it is also limited—and personal. It is a commitment made within the context of my life, not anyone else’s…. For me to conclude firmly that I will not eat animals does not mean I oppose, or even have mixed feelings about, eating animals in general.

In the other corner, “Rogue,” bone-licker, shit-kicker, caribou-killer (in a Fascist kind of way):

I love meat. I eat pork chops, thick bacon burgers, and the seared fatty edges of a medium-well-done steak. But I especially love moose and caribou. I always remind people from outside our state that there’s plenty of room for all Alaska’s animals—right next to the mashed potatoes.

A caption next to a photo of her posing with a dead caribou:

I just shot it. It may not look like a trophy but it’s good eating.

Would this last even one round? Palin would make mincemeat out of Foer (even kind, gentle, intelligent people are doing that), and give him two lectures while while savoring his seared, not-too-fatty edges: one on just when a fetus becomes a human being, and another on what happens to people who are lukewarm about their convictions.

On the other hand, I would like to think that the person who actually wrote his own book might have some kind of advantage—the pen is mightier than the thirty-aught-six. Or something like that.